Customer Reviews

One Spice, Two Spice: American Food, Indian Flavors

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Critic Ruth Reichel's description of Chef Floyd Cardoz's New York restaurant, Tabla, is also an excellent summary of his book, "American food seen through the kaleidoscope of Indian spices." Cardoz applies the spices of his native country, but focuses on Western cooking techniques and the Western style of building a menu around one entrée (rather than a large collection of dishes served together, as is typical with Indian food).

The recipes in One Spice, Two Spice are easy to prepare, and intended to be taken as individual components of a meal. By applying Indian flavors to American style foods, it's easy to incorporate these dishes into everyday cooking, and add a little exotic flavor to an ordinary Tuesday night dinner. Cardoz does play with some classics, such as his Chicken Noodle Soup that incorporates turmeric, bay leaf, clove, ginger, cilantro, coriander, cumin, fresh green chilies, and chickpea-flour noodles cooked like spaetzle. In addition to the collection of recipes, Cardoz gives a nice overview of Indian spices and how they're used from a flavor standpoint in Indian cuisine. He introduces each recipe with a helpful description or story and offers serving suggestions for good accompaniments. It's a great book, and will build your familiarity in cooking with Indian spices.

I love the way this cookbook brings together two different cultures to produce amazing recipes. I actaully found this book easy to understand because of the full detailed glossary that explains all the indian spices (which not many indian cookbooks do!) My personal favorite recipe is the black pepper shrimp. I have tried this dish at the restaurant, Tabla, and would never think it is possible to make at home but it turns out that it's a really easy dish to prepare. If you want American food with an Indian kick I highly recommend this book!

This cookbook is extemely easy to follow. I would recommend it to everyone. The recipes are amazing and the stories behind them are very entertaining!

I really wanted to love this book but found myself disappointed. On the positive side, the author, a chef at a New York eatery, Tabla, sounds like a very interesting person. His introductions to the recipes share both his personal story and a little history about the recipe. Unfortunately, none of the recipes I tried justified the time or expense and effort in securing some of the more exotic ingredients. This is not to say that they were bad, they were fair to good. The lamb and chicken recipes were acceptable as was the cucumber soup. The book is heavy on fish but again, the result did not justify the effort. I was disappointed that there were no dessert recipes.

The book contains photographs but they have that dated feel one gets from the promotional magazines they keep in hotels. They are okay but far from exquisite, which describes this book.

Floyd Cardoz gives us a simple and wonderfully flavorful collection of ideas that you can have your way with. I was not a fan of Indian food (Americanized Indian poorly prepared) as is so common in this country. However, when done with care and the proper ingredients, techniques and execution, it is a magnificent experience. Well done Indian gets me the way few other things do. It gets me almost like it's in my bones, in the same way an excellent dashi does. The flavors and essence or umami permeates me. Cardoz, for years through his, Danny Meyer's and Tom Colicchio's restaurant "Tabla", (now closed), was able to hit that flavor profile for me perfectly. The balance of flavors using often ordinary ingredients was masterful. In one meal you would feel warm, spicy, cool, fresh, smokey and a dozen or so other things. No one ever overpowering the others or lingering after the dish. Many of the dishes had flavors that felt simple yet complex (at least that is the argument my mouth and my brain would have when not being able to figure out ingredients). Many times I have tried to recreate or emulate these flavors in dishes of my own from flavor memory, fortunatly this book confirmed where I was right and showed me what I was missing. It is written with practical American home kitchen in mind and is a simple must for anyone that does or wants to do Indian at home. Much of this book can be described as "American Food with Indian Flavors". (Access to an Asian or Indian grocer should be a consideration but is by no means essential.) Disclaimer: As much as I enjoy doing a precisely executed meal/dish, I am foremost an idea browser and most of the time I step into my kitchen I simply have a flavor in my head and I'm shootin' from the hip, "get some!"

I just loved applying Floyds recipes to my cuisine. I was bought up in the Fiji Islands and the Indian culture is part of my DNA and such books are few and far between - go for it try the recipes and have a great meal mwith family and friends

Simply, it's a GREAT book. There are very few books of this category an d caliber in the market ( internationally). It may not be so very simple for a home maker to re create most of the dishes, but, cooking is a about an individual's personality. So, use the ideas contained and get an insight about what all went into the making of the great restaurant Tabla. A great learning tool for an avid cook who want s to play with the nuances of Indian cuisine - with a western perspective. I am sure this book and if there are more to follow will gather a place of importance in the world of Indian culinary references in the western hemisphere
I really wished the authors had put in some more pictures and nicer ( modernized) versions of their renditions at Tabla
Buy the book from amazon. com and not the third party =- you can make use of the free shipping program that amazon has ( if you buy something else too!)
AJ
( its a "kid's review since I did not want to give my identity... so, take it for what it's worth)

Title: One Spice, Two Spice
Format: Paperback Cookbook
Authors: Floyd Cardoz with Jane Daniels Lear
ISBN: 0-06-073501-5
Published By: HarperCollins Publisher
Review By: Diana Rohini LaVigne, Indian Life & Style Magazine

One Spice, Two Spice is a wonderful adaptation of Indian cooking for the American palette. Beginning with the essentials needed for cooking with Indian spices, this cookbook is easy to read with large print and provides very detailed instructions on how to bring together simple ingredients to make exotic dishes with Indian flair.

Rice dishes are an especially fantastic array and complement the entrées featured in the book. Entrees include chicken, fish and vegetable dishes with wide selections of recipes to keep cooks happy trying new things daily.

There is no shortage of recipes in the 298-page One Spice, Two Spice cookbook. The recipes are easy to understand and woven with simple exotic graphics that allude to the origin of the spices used. Henna like graphics and mosaic patterns mark the inside pages of this wonderful addition to any one's cookbook library.

I love the title. I love the idea of cooking American food with Indian spices. However, this book seems dedicated to keeping its secrets from the public.

Amateur art direction gives us pages printed in brown and lime, with page numbers in unreadable screened lime. Squares of too-heavy lime green are plopped over the brown type lists of ingredients, making them totally unreadable. Throughout the book, the type lines are too long for the page width, leaving much information lost somewhere in the spine. None of this crowding is necessary, as there are plenty of white pages that could have been utilized. Nice crisp black type in a larger size might have saved this book from the Unreadable category in spite of the cheap paper its printed on and the smudgy looking color photos. But no. We're left to stand in our kitchens with magnifying glasses and flashlights. The joy of cooking it's not. If I were the author, I'd be seriously ticked. Seriously.